Test flight with VF-32

this week I have flown the first of many missions that will test my campaign. Since the campaign only covers 15 days (= max 15 mission) i can easily test one campaign session during the course of 3 days . The first missions always start on the ground, but after mission 4 or 5 I start near the target to speed up testing.

The first testrun was with VF-32 flying the F-14 Tomcat. Below is a list of mission flown.

Mission 1: fighter sweep: noticed some Mirage 5's without weapons
Mission 2: intercept - nothing special

Friendly F-18 in need for an escort

Mission3: CAP - noticed another flight of F-14's without weapons
Mission 4: intercept - nothing special

Twist and Turn

Mission 5: escort
Mission 6 intercept - intercepts never occur near the carrier, always near ground stations.
Mission 7: escort: this mission took me to the far edge of the terrain and I witnesses some fighters hovering in mid air, I'll have to check that some targets are not too close to the edge of the map.

Low ceiling fight

mission 8: CAP - suddenly I got resupplied! I'll have to check the campaign settings to ommit the resupplies.
mission 9: sweep
mission 10: cap

One enemy less

mission 11: sweep - the Mig-23's at the airfield had no weapons, I'll have to check that out too
Mission 12: escort
Mission 13: sweep - the campaign ended in a cease fire, the end image and end text still refers to the wrong country. I'll need to fix that too.

You only need one maverick

This first test campaign resulted in a small checklist::
check aircraft loadouts
Fix Target location
rewrite endscreens

The next test campaign will be with a dedicated strike aircraft to check the ground parts of the campaign.

PS in one picture you can see where the campaign will take place.

Happy Flying

Current project

You might have noticed that I don't post that regulary anymore. That's because I am lately working on my latest project: a campain for Wings over Europe.

The campaign is set in an alternative history, where the Berlin Wall did not fall on november 9, 1989. Instead East-Germans trying to pass to the west were gunned down by East-German and Soviet border guards. In the following months the Soviets intervene to surpress a popular uprising in East-Germany. Unfortunetaly a small skirmish between US marines and Soviet/East-German troops in Berlin provide the spark for the third world war. The Soviets, in their effort to get rid of the pesky capitalist island in their midst, decide to capture west-berlin. Realizing that this will provoke a retaliation from NATO, the Soviets decide to attack West-Germany straight away.

The campaign will pit the player as a NATO pilot, fending off the Soviet invasion. Using Orders of Battle found on the internet, I have discovered which squadrons would fight on each side. Its my intention to allow the player to fly with each of these squadrons for all involved NATO nations.

Since the campaign takes place in 1990, I take great care in only showing the actual planes of that time. I did include some aircraft that did not appear on the original OOB, like F-4E's from the ANG, but I could imagine that NATO lines would be strenghten as the tension between west and east intensify.

The campaign itself only lasts 30 days, since it was believed that NATO troops should survive for about 3 weeks untill the first convoys from the US would arrive. I can imagine that if NATO would be in a dire position after 30 days without resupplies, nukes would become a viable option to decide the war, which I consider as the official end of the campaign.

While writing this campaign, I keep track of all the modifications I make, with the purpose of writing an extensinve instruction blog on the matter. Most campaign builders only provide a rudimentary readme, especially since they have to ask permission to each modder to use his or her aircraft or mods. By providing all the explenation in a blog (with detailled ini-edit instructions) I hope to circumvent the permission rule.

At this moment I have already included all the USAF forces for Europe and RAF Europe. The only aircraft I need to add is the Jaguar for RAF. In the OOB they are located in the United Kingdom, but I could imagine at least one squadron being relocated to the frontlines in West-Germany.

Below are some screenshots I took of the aircraft already in the campaign. These screenshots also act as the loading screens for the selected aircraft.